The Great and Terrible
by Thorn In Your Side
Summary: It struck him that he was in fact a pedophile after all, albeit a monogamous one. Nor/Wizard BookVerse


**The Great and Terrible **

**Disclaimer: I don't claim rights to Wicked. **

**A/N: I was really struggling for a title for this. And then I noticed 'the great and terrible' came up a few times. So then—boom—I had my title. Okay, author sharing random fact time is over. Shoo, go read. **

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

She was young. She was scared. She was delivered to him in tattered clothes.

He tutted. The soldiers had touched her. Craven, dick driven dogs. She wasn't even a terribly attractive thing. At least not now, shivering and sniffling in front of his illusion. He was a grotesque green teddy bear that day, stuffing spilling from its stomach and head lolling around creepily.

"Nor," he said in sepulchral tones. She cringed and looked up at him.

The teddy bear blinked out.

Darkness fell over the room.

Nor screamed.

The lights returned.

The Wizard stood on the podium, the real man instead of a magician's trick. He click clacked his steel soled loafers towards her. The terror in her eyes made him pause.

"Oh for the love of God, child, I won't rape you! A pedophile, I am not. I am Oz, the great and terrible. I am the Wizard, the ruler of your country. I am your master."

She quavered and drew herself up. He could see courage coalescing in her eyes as she fought her fear to say something.

"My country—the Vinkus—is not ruled by _**you.**_ My father ruled it when he was alive and Irji'll rule it when he's older!"

She smiled, exposing chipped teeth. Clearly, the thought of a filial rescue was on her mind. Apparently, the scoundrels at the garrison hadn't enlightened her on her family's fate. The Wizard wondered how he should go about breaking her heart and decided on directly.

"Your brother, your aunts, your mother are dead. I didn't order them executed, but there you have it. You are alone in your lineage and you are last in your lineage. You are my slave."

The bravado in her face crumpled into anguish a human so young should never know. Deep in his authoritative heart, the Wizard felt something stir. Something he'd rather keep dormant.

And so they met. The daughter of a Prince. The son of a beggar. One was a slave. The other ruled a country.

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In a month, she had broken.

"Nor," the Wizard called to his complacent servant, "Come clean up."

She came. She picked up his used tray. She left.

The stirring in his heart had grown to an itch in his subconscious. A month had passed and the girl hadn't said a word. He'd gone out of his way to show her kindness, but it seemed futile. She shied away from it; from him.

Well, he _**had **_indirectly caused the murder of everyone she cared for. Perhaps the prejudice wasn't unfounded. But really now, she couldn't go on like this. He would have to find her company.

So he found her a female friend. A young Quadling maiden of the same age, bubbly and talkative and loathsome.

It was the Quadling who whispered in his ear a few months later, her breath sour with the news.

"She is pregnant."

Surely not.

"She hasn't bled since I came her."

It had been rape.

"The child grows in her belly and she knows not what to do for it."

Rape didn't result in pregnancy.

"It will be born dead and harm the mother if she doesn't learn."

He summoned her to him.

"You're pregnant, aren't you Nor?" he asked, but it was hardly a question. He hadn't expected a reply.

"I wanna keep him."

"_**What**_?"

"I wanna keep him. I'm not gonna be the last in my line."  
He'd been so very wrong. She hadn't broken after all. Upon closer investigation it turned out she was about three months pregnant. It had been more than five since she'd arrived at the palace. She'd plotted. She'd planned. _She'd willingly slept with someone after being raped. _She'd actually listened to his words. She'd taken them to heart.

She'd made an heir to the Arjiki throne.

His fury was dulled by admiration. Under all the filth and stupidity, the spirit of a princess, a wily savage, a child's defiance against authority pulsed with a determined vehemence.

But that did not change the fact that her child would have to die.

He felt uneasy as he told her his plan. He could see courage coalescing in her eyes again. It was stronger and it was cleverer than the last time. And he suspected that this time, its effects would be felt more profoundly.

The delivery date rolled around. Her pot expelled the parasite. Well, it was a parasite in his view. To her it was the light of her pathetic dungeon life. He came to look at the dark skinned pat of squirming life. The midwives shooed him away shyly. Nor remained unconscious.

The next day, the midwives and the Quadling girl were gone with the child.

This time his fury had no admiration to temper it. He had her whipped. He had her starved. He denied her post natal care and did not allow her sleep for days on end. When she was close to death, he asked the question that had been eating at his soul.

"Who is the father?" Terse.

But she would not say.

"I won't punish him." Lies.

The name was not spoken.

"I will stop looking for the child." Desperate.

"You'll never find him anyway. He'll come back to avenge his grand mama and uncle."

Instead of killing her, he ordered her fed again. Madness.

She lapsed into silence again.

It lasted a year.

She had wanted him to know that there would a child. That was why the Quadling girl had told him. She'd wanted him to fear a child.

Hah.

He was Oz, the great and terrible. They day a child would scare him would be the day the sun fell out of the sky.

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The sun fell out of the sky.

A child terrified him. But it was not her child. It was her, not emerged from childhood yet and already borne a child. For the first time in a year, he heard her speak.

"You look tired."

Her voice was hoarse from disuse. So she hadn't been speaking to _**anyone.**_ He imagined her practicing her dusty vocal cords at night to get out that one sentence. The itch in his subconscious, long ignored, flared up in a roiling pang of emotion.

"Do I?"

"You look old."

"I am."

Her hollow eyes dug tunnels in his. His skin crawled. She leaned in. He held his breath. "Don't die," she said.

"Okey-dokey," he replied.

"It's my son's birthday," she added, and collapsed.

A flare for the dramatic, he thought, and hollered for the guards.

A quick examination revealed that she had taken a cyanide tablet. He watched her irately, the flame in his chest gaining in strength, as she recovered. The cyanide was old and had not worked. Her healing was painful. _She deserves this pain_, he thought sourly, and then wondered why.

_Because she's putting me through pain._

Oh, good grief.

The Wizard of Oz had fallen in love.

It was a highly inconvenient thing to fall into. He found that he couldn't get up. He found that struggling didn't help at all. _Rather like quicksand, _he thought balefully. He avoided her like the plague. In fact, he'd rather have had the plague over for tea than risk looking at her face.

She found him too soon. Perhaps it was inevitable. Perhaps the Fates hated him. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that she lived in his rooms.

"You're avoiding me," she said calmly.

"Petulant child, go away."

"Don't be like that."

"I shall be however I wish to be."

"Right, and I'm the child?"

He glared at her. She kneeled at his feet. He turned away. She sighed wearily.

Wearily. Hah. Not even fourteen and _**she **_was weary. He was the one ruling a country, keeping it safe and sane, keeping his life straight. What did she have to worry about? A child she'd sent away. A family line to resurrect. A life not worth living.

"You told me not to die," he said.

"I'm sorry," she said, "What a rude thing to say to someone."

He ignored the sarcasm. For someone who spoke so little, she sure had a way with words. "Why?"

"I gave birth so that my family's traditions could be carried on. Honor requires my son to kill you."

"Charming."

She lapsed into silence.

It lasted a few minutes.

"Why didn't you let me die?"

"It hurts to live, doesn't it, when they're dead?" he said nastily.

She spat at his feet. He stared in disbelief as she stood, her face livid. They watched each other for a while and then all the anger slid off her face.

"Sorry," she said. Curtly, dismissively. She walked away, and the anger she'd felt rose up in him. He was too old for games like this, too old to let her gain the upper hand, too old to feel this strange mix of excitement and apprehension. He pursued her.

Nor's face looked stricken. "I said I'm sorry!"

_I let you live because I love you_! he'd intended to yell. But even in his head the words were ridiculous. He growled, frustration gnawing at his mind. She gazed fearfully at him.

"Who was the father?"

"Ehwhut?"

Well that was understandable. He'd asked over a year ago. She didn't follow his train of thought. Hell, _**he **_didn't follow his train of thought.

The Wizard of Oz, the great and terrible sunk to his knees and pulled at her hands.

"Who was the father?"

She hesitated. She glanced at him and glanced away. She told him. A blond kitchen boy she'd found drunk, so drunk she knew he'd never remember the act. He'd quit the Palace a few months ago to work for an ambassador somewhere.

A great sense of relief overwhelmed him, and a wave of nauseous self loathing flowed when he realized he'd been worried that she was in love with someone.

She knelt again, peering deep into his eyes. He wondered what she could see there. He feared she would see love. Her gaze slid down to his hands, and she picked one up to kiss it.

To kiss it…?

"Nor?"

"if you hadn't killed them," she said conversationally, "We would've met in a year or two."

He blinked at her, his mind sluggishly trawling along in the wake of her thoughts. Why was it a train of thought? A train was hard to lose. Her mind's wanderings, however…

"I would've made my debut. My brother would introduce me to you. you would know me as the Crown Prince's sister. I'd be wearing a blue robe. The color of our clan. My mother would be there, the Dowager. I would be called a princess, and all the boys would want my first dance. But I'd wait for you. You'd ask. We'd dance."

It struck him that he knew where this little star's soliloquy was going. It also struck him that he'd enjoy the ending. Then it struck (or rather, bowled him over) that he was a pedophile after all, albeit a monogamous one.

"We'd dance all night."

"Unlikely. I have joint pains."

"Hush. We'd dance all night. You'd ask me to dine separately with you. No brother, no mother, no chaperone."

"Impossible. The scandal."

"You were charmed, and who can blame you?"

"Your ego is unbecoming of a slave."

"Unbecoming," she smiled. "A perfect word to describe my life. I who have never been becoming am becoming un."

His head throbbed. She continued her fantasy tale of what could never have been.

"We would have eaten in silence. You would've been transfixed. I would've been bedazzled. At the end of the night, you would ask for the pleasure of my company again soon."

"Perish the thought."

"I would give it."

"Of course."

"There would ensue a whirlwind courtship."

"And a Vegas wedding?"

"What?"

"Nothing," the Wizard said. His servant looked into his eyes, a strange emotion dancing across her face.

"There would be…a…wedding…" she breathed, leaning in. His whole body tingled, and that's what knocked some sense into him. The great and terrible Oz, kneeling on the floor and waiting for a girl not even old enough to be his granddaughter to kiss him—his first kiss in decades.

The shame jerked him away. It jerked him up. It jerked him back to his room where he slammed the door and sank to his carpeted floor, glaring around his flawed world.

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Her silence was horrible. As the months slid by her eyes grew dull from a potential intelligence wasted in want and wordlessness. As the months slid by the maelstrom of feelings in him quieted, and he squashed them (or so he thought) with an overload of work.

As the months slid by, her child grew.

He thought about the child more with each passing day. Was the Quadling girl raising him? Were the midwives still a part of it? Where was he now, the heir to a benighted land? In the badlands to the south or in Emerald City itself? He couldn't be in the Vinkus. He would attract unwanted attention there.

The child's second birthday made the Wizard wary. He kept Nor in his peripheral vision in the weeks flanking it, but she didn't try to kill herself. Whatever the reason for her decision, the Wizard breathed easy.

She approached him a fortnight later, when he was retiring for the night. Her hand fluttered to his bare shoulder and he startled and spun to face her.

Nor kissed him.

In retrospect, it was patently ridiculous. The stately Emperor of the day as in his sleepwear, consisting of precious little but his boxers. The girl was grimy, and sweaty and salty on the lips. The Lurlinemas celebrations roared outside the window and they kissed. The Wizard drew her close out of pure instinct, an old body responding to a nearly forgotten stimulus. Nor was new to it, but she new to raise herself on her toes, and grasp his shoulders, and suck on his lower lip.

It ended as unassumingly as it had begun. They moved apart at the same time, man and child. She smiled, unbelievably, unfeasibly, and turned away.

He watched her go and wondered what the hell had just happened.

He wondered a great deal over the next few weeks, his only clue the vague feeling of having lost an important battle. The kiss that ought to have happened a year ago had happened now, and the reigniting of old feelings made him queasy. He was still inappropriately fond of her. Now he wasn't content with hovering on the edge of her life. He wanted to be her life, he wanted her to star in his.

But she made no move.

_The initiative will always be hers, _he thought irritably, _If I kiss her, I am taking advantage of a slave. If she jumps me before bed, she is showing affection she cannot speak of freely. Hah! I come away to a different _world _and there is still injustice. I become an _Emperor _and I still cannot approach a girl._

He wondered what would be the death of him. Old age, the Witch, or the magnitude of his want for her. Trust his libido to act up after all these years.

He took to dropping hints. Like some sort of lusty school girl, he kept his gaze riveted on her when she served him good. He called out to her, assigning her chores the maids would normally do. He told her to keep him company at all hours.

She did it all. And she would do no more.

The deplorable attempts to hint his desire became deplorable attempts to seduce her. He would invite her to feed him, to bathe him, to sit by his bed at night and stroke his balding head.

She did it all. And still she would do no more.

Enough is enough, he thought, and ordered her straight out.

"Nor, kiss me again."

Her dead, dull eyes turned on him in a mournful state. His words filtered through the normal orders she was used to hearing. A spark lit in her eyes.

And suddenly, with a delighted shriek, she leapt at him, on him, she forced her lips against his and he threw her on his bed and climbed onto her. Fear flared in her eyes and he wasn't beyond caring; he halted his progress with the old buttons on her dress.

"I won't hurt you," he pleaded, "Please, please."

The fear dwindled to an ember of apprehension. Her hands went to his face and an odd rasp issued from her mouth.

"I know."

Later, as her even breathing served as her own lullaby, when his lust had been slaked and the affection bullied him into cradling her, he found it all very weird.

"You shouldn't be fond of me," he fretted, "I took away so much from you. Its unnatural for a mouse to fall in love with an owl. I harmed you, I hurt you, and yet you crave me as much as I crave you."

"I'm not _**stupid,**_" she responded sleepily, startling him, "I know you're not a good man. Auntie Guest hated you—well she hated everything, but you particularly—but I don't know why I like you. I just do. Anyway, you're the one who ruined my life, so its your responsibility to redeem it, right?"

It was the longest thing he'd ever heard her say, and the most comforting. He let her curl up into his chest, his arms locked around her waist. In a perverse way, he thought she had a point. It was irony, wasn't it? She loved him because he was the only thing left in her life, because all the magic in her had no other way out. He was quite content with that, and quite willing to keep it that way as long as circumstances allowed it.

Circumstances. _That word, _the Wizard thought dimly in the first waves of slumber, _is the crux of my life. Circumstances that birthed me to my heritage, circumstances that made my linage a disadvantage, circumstances that brought me here and made me a dictator. _

And his last thought before falling asleep was the same as it had been for the last thirty years.

_I wonder how long my luck will hold out._

How long indeed.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

**I tried to keep Nor as an idiot girl. But somewhere along the line she grew a backbone and Elphaba snuck in. Well, spending most of her time with the Wizard had to have some effect on her development, so maybe the character tweaks won't matter, yes? **


End file.
